The present invention relates to methods for providing media across a computer network. In particular, the present invention relates to techniques for adapting input streams of video data to meet desired parameters for output streams of video data.
The legend of the Tower of Babel tells us that humans once spoke a common language. However, divine intervention soon foiled human's plans in the building of the tower to the sky. This was done by making humans speak in different languages. As a result, the legend goes, humans did not understand each other, humans misunderstood others' intentions, and ultimately humans moved away from each other. Ever since that day, humans have been benefited and plagued by language and cultural differences.
Translating between different languages has also been an issue considered in popular fiction. In Douglas Adam's well-known Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), the problem of different languages was solved by the introduction of a “Babel fish.” Adams described the Babel fish as a “small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on the brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.” While this, of course, may not really exist, a commercial translation service has actually been named after the Babel fish.
On the Internet, Altavista.com provides a translation service that translates text in a web page from one selected language to another selected language. The tool is called the “Babel fish.” To use this tool, the user enters a web address and then specifies the language direction, e.g. English to French. In response, the Babel fish will translate the text that appears on the page into the new language, all other aspects of the page will remain the same. The quality of the translations may vary with actual usage. For example, translating the phrase “To jump the gun” to French and back into English returns the phrase “To connect the gun.” As can be seen, the quality of such services are not quite ideal. Further, such services do not address non-text data such as audio and visual (media) data.
On the web, other types of data than text are also displayed to users. Such data include media such as images, sounds, video, and the like. With such data, instead of being in different languages, the data are stored and transmitted into different formats. Most of the different media formats are incompatible. Currently, there are a multitude of standards or formats for each of them, for example, images may be transmitted in formats including *.jpg, *.gif, *.bmp, *.pcx, and the like; sounds may be transmitted in formats including *.wav, *.mp3, *.aiff, and the like; and video may be transmitted in formats including *.avi, *.mov, *.rm, *.mpg, *.asf, vivo and the like.
To view or hear data in any of the above media formats requires an appropriate viewing (translation) application program. That is, an application program is required to decode the transmitted data and output the data to the computer of the requester. The requesting computer must have preinstalled many different viewer applications. This is so that the computer can receive, decode, and display data stored in the many different media formats.
One drawback to requiring multiple viewers is that this solution is not appropriate for all devices connected to the web. In particular, it is not appropriate for future wireless devices, or the like. Such devices may include cellular telephones, wireless PDAs, network appliances (refrigerators, toasters, ovens, smart houses), wrist watches, wearable computers, and the like. Because many of these devices will have lower amounts of memory and performance compared to desktop computers, these devices will not be able to display a large number of viewers. As a result, these devices will not be able to play many different media formats.
One solution proposed to address this problem has been to standardize upon one particular format. For example, all wireless devices in the future would be able to receive and output data stored in one particular media format, such as MPEG-4 (Motion Pictures Expert Group), or the like.
A drawback to this solution is that in theory, this solution is reasonable, however, in practice, it is not likely to happen. The primary reason is that there are many competing media formats available, and most are backed by separate companies. For example, Windows pushes the *avi media format, Apple pushes the *.mov media format, Real Networks pushes the *.rm format, Vivo Software pushes its own format, and the like. It is doubtful that such companies will agree on a single media format.
Another drawback is that even if there is one standardized media format, different requesting devices will have different performance, resolutions, bandwidth, and the like. For example, a PDA may have the ability to display 80×60 pixel 24-bit color images, however a wrist watch may have the ability to display only 40×30 pixel 8-bit gray scale images, and the like. Because many future wireless network devices or appliances will have different performance, bandwidth, and the like, the source of the media will have to store the data in just as many data files. For example, if there are 100 different telephones with web access, each telephone with its own performance, bandwidth factors, and the like, to support all these telephones the media source will have to store the data in 100 different data files. This is highly inefficient and/or impractical to implement, not to mention impossible for live data.
Typically, media sources, such as web sites, provide only a limited number of media formats and performance characteristics. For example, a typical site may only offer a media clip in the Quicktime format at 320×240 resolution or 160×120 resolution. If a requesting device cannot process Quicktime format, the user is out of luck. As another example, if the requesting device can only play 80×60 resolution Quicktime movies, the media source is wasting its output bandwidth sending the requesting device 160×120 resolution Quicktime movies.
Thus what is needed in the industry are improved methods for providing requesting devices with media in the format and performance appropriate and/or requested for these requesting devices.